


Burning From the Inside

by Cluegirl



Series: The Passion of Lovers series [1]
Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-09
Updated: 2010-06-09
Packaged: 2017-10-10 00:40:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/93358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cluegirl/pseuds/Cluegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry requires a short, sharp shock to pull him out of his downward spiral. Snape gives it to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burning From the Inside

"I. Don't. Care." Harry spoke the words with terrible precision.

Hermione blinked, momentarily stunned into silence by the stony look on her friend's face, but then her meddlesome nature reasserted itself and she settled her hands onto her hips and gave Harry her best prefect's scowl. "Harry, you have to care! This isn't some homework assignment you're skiving off, it's detention!"

"She's right, mate," Ron chimed in, though reluctantly, "Snape'll bust Gryffindor down to negative points, and-"

"Fine. Let him. I don't care about House Points."

"Well, what about those of us who DO care then?" Hermione huffed.

Harry slammed his book closed, and stood -- towering over her in the privacy of his own mind, though he could only look her in the eye in reality. "Let THEM go serve Snape's bloody pointless detention. I'm through with it! I'm through with his picking on me just because he's a bloody teacher, and if nobody else is going to stop him being unfair, then I guess it's just up to me, isn't it?"

"This is about the quidditch ban, isn't it?" Hermione pursed her lips, clearly trying to resemble Professor MacGonagall. "You know Umbridge had Ministerial approval for her edicts last year, Harry -- the Headmaster can't just overturn what he likes without going through the Board of Governors-"

"NO IT BLOODY ISN'T ABOUT THE STUPID QUIDDITCH BAN!" He roared, "I DON'T CARE ABOUT QUIDDITCH!" Ron made a squeaking noise, but Harry rolled onward. "I don't care about Umbridge's stupid rules, and I don't care about Dumbledore's stupid rules, and I don't care about that stupid new Defense professor we've got this year, and I don't care about house points, or homework, or the stupid goblin wars, or smelly humpgubble plants, or sock-mending charms, or about SNAPE'S BLOODY DETENTION!"

But _Harry,_" she started, "you can't just-"

"Watch me," he snarled, then shoved past Hermione's shoulder, stomped through the tomb-silent common room, and up the stairs to his dorm room.

He slammed the door, startled Trevor under Neville's bed, and told himself fiercely that he didn't care. Harry Potter was bloody well tired of caring. Because caring didn't matter, did it? His caring about Sirius had only gotten him killed, hadn't it? Oh, everyone was careful to say it wasn't his fault -- Sirius had always been reckless (they said) if anyone was to blame, it was Voldemort (they said) and how could Harry have known that his dreams were Voldemort's doing? (They were always sure to add.)

Only Harry was sure he _ought_ to have known, somehow. And he was likewise sure that he was to blame. Somehow. And if nobody would bloody well _say_ so, then what could it mean but that somehow… somehow Sirius's death wasn't important enough to blame on anyone?

Because they sure as hell weren't blaming Snape, and for all Dumbledore's having _said_ he was to blame, nobody seemed to want _him_ to pay! And Bellatrix Lestrange was bloody well supposed to be trying to kill him, wasn't she? They'd been dueling, after all, so what else was she meant to do but hit with her deadliest force? He could hate the bitch for killing Sirius, but Harry sure as hell couldn't _blame_ her.

"It wasn't anybody's fault," they all told him at one point or another -- at least the ones who had anything at all to say about it, "it just happened." Only if something like that could just… happen, despite every single thing Harry could do to stop it. Well, it rather meant that anything at all could just 'happen', didn't it? And in that case, why should Harry bother to try and stop anything at all from 'happening'?

Let Voldemort believe in Trelawney's stupid prophecy. He already believed it enough for the both of them, and he was going to do whatever he thought he needed to about it whether Harry gave a damn or not. And in light of that thought, giving a damn didn't really make much sense to Harry anymore.

He flung open his trunk and began hurling his belongings across his bed until he reached the tugged-loose lining pocket where Sirius's mirror rested, shattered and blank in the accusing darkness. He pulled it out and scowled at the glassy, dull surface. "So who cares about you anyway?" he asked it, dry eyed and breathing fire, "Who cares about anything? Not me. Not bloody me!"

The door opened behind him, and the mirror's cracked edges glinted a spark of carroty hair and embarrassed pink skin. "Unless you've come to ask me if I want to play chess with you, Ron, you can just piss off," Harry warned him without turning, "Because I'm not going."

"Harry," Ron squeaked, "it's just, er-"

"I don't care!" Harry flung the cracked mirror on his bed and turned, "Snape can assign me whatever stupid detention he wants, but he can't bloody well make me go!"

"Actually, Mr. Potter," that voice oiled around the back of his neck and made every hair stand upright, "I think you'll find I can." And before Harry could so much as remember where he's tossed his wand, he found himself petrified, bound neck to knee in dark green, snaky ropes, and floating four inches off the ground. "Mr. Weasley," Snape's voice was smug and vile, "kindly collect Mr. Potter's book bag, Potion's text, parchment, ink, and a quill."

"Sorry mate," whispered Ron, who clearly needed no legilimency spell to translate the look Harry shot him, "nobody went to fetch him, he just showed up, and-"

"NOW, Mr. Weasley."

"I'm just getting his shoes, Sir," Ron turned to protest, but Snape only gave him an ugly smile as he turned Harry upside down.

"My, my," Snape raised an eyebrow. "Not wearing your shoes or robes for a detention in the dungeons? Heavens, but you'll be chilly, won't you? Not a choice I would have made, Potter, but who am I to question your reckless disregard for personal comfort?" And with that, Harry was flipped upright so quickly that his dinner kicked him.

"But Sir," Ron tried, clutching Harry's trainers in one hand, and his bookbag in the other, "it'll just take a moment to-"

"Mr. Potter is already behind his time," Snape replied, clearly enjoying himself as he snatched the bag and slung it over Harry's rigid shoulder, "Much longer, and his detention will last all night." He led the way down the stairs, and Harry had no choice but to bob along behind him like a slightly nauseated fishing float while the entirety of Gryffindor house stared in abject horror. But nobody stepped into the Potions Master's way, and nobody so much as coughed to draw his attention, and nobody failed to look away from Harry's blistering glare.

_Fine, to hell with the lot of you!_ Harry raged silently as the portrait hole opened, _I still don't bloody care! He can't make me, and you can't either!_ But Harry's dinner still gave an uncomfortable lurch when he saw Professor MacGonagall give Snape a curt nod as he climbed through the portrait hole and swept Harry off down the stairs.

~*~

The dungeon stones were fiercely cold under Harry's feet once Snape finally set him down and un-hexed him, but not nearly as cold as the Potions Master's glare. Harry swallowed, then reminded himself that he didn't care, and returned the glower.

"Where is the report which you were to have turned in during the potions class you missed today, Mr. Potter?"

Harry shrugged, and slid his bookbag into the chair. "Didn't do it."

And oh yes, Snape noticed the lack of his title. "Why," he said through his teeth, "may I ask, did you find yourself incapable of producing a twelve-inch essay which even Longbottom managed to complete?" Snape waved one long, spidery hand over the stack of parchments, weighted down by a ruler marked in red. "Or was it perhaps that you fancied yourself -"

"I didn't do it," Harry snarled, advancing on the desk, "because it didn't bloody well MATTER!" He slammed both hands down on the desktop, sending essays and quills and inkwells and ruler flying. "Billywig stings don't make one fucking scrap of difference in whether I live or die, or anyone else either! They're just crap, like it's all crap! And I'm not bloody well doing it anymore!"

Snape's only response was to raise an eyebrow. "And when that attitude leads to your expulsion, Potter? What will you do then?"

And oh, wouldn't that be Snape's fucking wet dream? Harry Potter kicked out of Hogwarts without him having to stick his big old nose in? Harry shook his head. "I won't be expelled, because nobody but you cares what I do!" Snape opened his mouth, but Harry pushed on before he could reply, "But if I am expelled, then that's just fine. It won't change anything. That fucking prophecy will still say the same thing, and Voldemort will still believe it, and I'll either kill him, or he'll kill me, and billywig stings STILL WON"T FUCKING MATTER!"

Fire woke in Snape's black eyes. "I daresay it will matter when you find yourself packed back to those Muggles you hate so much!"

"I won't go!" Harry snapped, "I'm seventeen last month, and they can't make me go back there!"

"Then you will throw away the protection of your blood, give up the wards on your home, and just wait for the Dark Lord to-"

"It's not my fucking home, and I don't bloody CARE!" Harry leaned across Snape's desk, nose to nose as he screamed, "Voldemort can come kiss my-"

Suddenly he lurched off balance, nearly sprawling as his tie jerked tight. "And what about your parent's sacrifice, you selfish little brat?" Snape hissed, dragging Harry around the desk by the tie, while Harry pried in vain at his fingers, "Is this how you uphold all the blood debts you carry? All the lives which have been sacrificed to keep you alive? Do you care about them?"

One breath, then two. Harry stared, shakingly furious, but aware on some level that his shelter was being threatened. If he began to care, then it would all just begin again, Because then he'll have to care about Sirius, and about Peter Pettegrew, and about Cedric, and about -- "No," he said at last, "No I don't!"

Snape's face twisted, and it took Harry a breathless second to realize that the man was actually _smiling_ \-- really smiling, not smirking or sneering or grimacing, but giving a little, almost-sad quirk which on any other face, would have meant concern, or even regret. And then, before Harry could even shout, Snape's knee jolted into his thighs, and he found himself being dragged/shoved face down across Snape's lap.

Breath knocked out of him by landing hard on Snape's other knee, Harry still managed to yell when he heard the ruler whistling through the air. And that was good, because when it hit him, Harry couldn't manage anything more than a ragged gasp. With only his thin school trousers to cushion the blow, that ruler really fucking _stung_!

Harry cursed, struggled, shouted with all his startled might, but the blows just kept coming, each one like a stripe of fire across his arse, ten times more painful than the one before it, twenty times more humiliating with each ringing slap. This was nothing like Uncle Vernon's bearlike cuffs to the head, or being shoved into a damned cupboard -- this was sharp, blazing pain that didn't stop hurting no matter how he fought it. In fact, the harder he struggled, the harder he cursed, the harder the ruler seems to slap across his arse, until his throat was raw from screaming, and surely, _surely_ he had to be bloodied back there!

But more to the point, he was helpless -- just as helpless as he'd been in the Riddle family graveyard, just as helpless as he'd been when Sirius flew backward through the ghostly veil. He was splayed and spread across Snape's knees, with his arse blistering hot and no bloody traction to get away, and no more words coming out of his throat because all that would fit were those shaking, ragged sounds he'd never heard himself utter before, and suddenly Harry found that he DID fucking care -- he cared very much indeed!

He fought that even harder than he'd fought the beating, thrashing like a mad thing to escape the burning, blinding weight that was clawing its way up from his belly with every stroke of that damned ruler. His eyes were hot, as sharp-stung as his arse was, and that thought only made him flail the harder. Because no matter what happened to him, Harry Potter Would. Not. Fucking. Cry. DAMMIT!

But then a vicious wriggle brought his head hard into the desk, overwhelmed the pain and shame with a shocking, ringing dizziness, and startling them both still for a second. Then Snape grabbed a handful of Harry's blistered arse, and hauled him firmly back into place into his lap, and FUCK! Harry couldn't hold back a scream at the wool grinding into his arse, and Snape's fucking leg pressing his erection hard and hot against his belly and-!

Harry froze again with a jagged, horrified gasp. He was hard. He was really _really_ hard, and Snape…

Snape's fingers closed on Harry's abused arse again, this time in a solid grope, which made Harry wail in mortified anguish even as he jutted his trapped penis even harder into Snape's thigh. "Here's irony for you, Potter," Snape's voice was low, ragged and vile with smugness, "you're aroused by this, and now it is I who don't care!"

And then the ruler whistled again, and the rain of fire continued, only this time each blow rocked Harry's cock hard against Snape's leg, and each lash of agony from behind was met with a curl of lust and friction from before, and Harry was gasping, sobbing desperate breaths, clutching at Snape's arm for balance, for some anchor in the storm of punishing blows pushing him closer and closer to the edge and.

And oh fuck! He was going to come. He was going to come any moment, right there against Snape's leg, with his arse thrusting up into that goddamned ruler, and he couldn't fucking do a thing to stop it! And with that horrified realization, the tears he'd been fighting back wrenched free at last -- broke like a mighty wave over his head and shattered his resistance like matchwood. Harry could no more fight back the emotional release than he could evade Snape's slashing ruler, or his own impending orgasm, and he knew it.

"Please," he stopped struggling, went limp and shuddering in Snape's grasp, though he knew begging would make no difference. "Please."

But then Snape did stop -- shoved Harry backward off his lap, to kneel beside his chair on the icy floor, heels pressed into his screaming arse, cock tenting his trouser fly, and that was almost worse than before. Because he still couldn't stop it, the pain, the lust, the tears, the damned, sick, helpless terror clawing out of him through his burning eyes -- he was just as helpless as before, but now he was facing it alone.

"Oh, do stop sniveling, Potter," Snape growled as Harry sagged, shaking against his leg.

But he couldn't stop -- didn't dare try to stop for fear the sharp, angry sobs would rip him apart. Harry shook his head, hiding his tears behind his sweaty fringe and half-fogged glasses, and begging silently, fervently, though he didn't know what for. The burning ache in his arse was almost as bad as the ache in his cock, or the one coiling like a basilisk around his heart. How could he tell relief to pray for first?

Then Snape seized a handful of Harry's hair and craned his head back, revealed his shame to the merciless light. "Stop crying," he repeated in a terrible, soft voice, "or do you want me to give you something to cry about?"

Harry stared, gulping helpless sobs and waiting for the condemnation, for the cruelty to return. But there was only silence, and waiting, and that level, inescapable black stare, and Harry began to realize there was something different there -- a hot, hard sort of understanding. As though Snape knew what it felt like to vomit up sixteen years of choked-back tears, and knew how best to manage it without going mad, and oh god, but he wanted to come, and maybe there was that there as well, but- Snape shook Harry's head, made him open his eyes, made him stop hiding again. And what could Harry do but nod?

Snape nodded back. Then he jerked Harry to his feet, worked his belt buckle with deft fingers, swiping it free of the trouser's loops almost before Harry knew what he was about. A second later, Harry's trousers were open, and then shoved down along with his pants, and oh GOD, the bunched-up fabric caught on his erection, then dragged over his arse in a promise of what would follow.

And when Snape tipped Harry back over his lap, Harry let himself go without a fight. And when his belt slapped like liquid agony over his sore arse, and the beating began in earnest, Harry didn't struggle, didn't scream. He just clung to Snape's leg and relaxed into the pain, weeping and sobbing and letting the roaring, blood-thundering waves toss him along as the strap cracked down again and again. Each fierce slap rocked Harry's cock against Snape's thigh, against his scratchy wool trousers, and the pleasure was a maddening coil around his spine, braiding together with the agony and the anguish until they were the same thing, and suddenly the ice Harry'd been hiding under cracked away melted and flowed away in gulps and gasps and spurts of blazing white. And the only sound he had left to him was a wordless, shuddering howl.

~*~

Snape lay the belt gently across Harry's heaving, shuddering back. His fingers trailed in soothing, easy strokes down the small of Harry's back while he rode out the storm. No hugs, no words of comfort to burn and itch and feel entirely wrong between them, just that gentle touch, that balance point of understanding. It is the first he'd ever had from the man, and realizing that made Harry cry a little harder. Because it made him care.

Eventually though, the tears failed, wound down to hiccoughs and gulps, and finally petered out entirely. Harry's arse was burningly hot and chilled at once, his stomach ached, his face was a mess, and his feet had long since fallen asleep. But Snape's hand still made those restless circles in the small of his back, where his shirt had ridden up, like rings in calming water, and Harry found himself strangely reluctant to give that up. But he would have to sooner or later, Harry knew, so he took a last deep breath, and put some effort into gathering his scattered wits.

"May I," he began, startled at the thick, harsh sound of his voice, "May I please get up now, Sir?"

Snape's only response was to lift his hands away, but Harry took that for tacit permission. He got up carefully, relying as much on the desk for balance as his own chilled legs. He tried a sniff, but his nose was too packed, so Harry settled for wiping his face on his shirtsleeve.

He froze as Snape made a disgusted noise, but the man only thrust a handkerchief at him. Harry put it to use, but didn't quite have the nerve to use it to wipe himself up down there. Snape waved him away with a sneer when he tried tentatively to hand the cloth back.

"You will sit there," he pointed to the wooden directly in front of his desk. That chair was uncomfortable on the best days -- on a freshly tanned arse, Harry realized, it was going to be sheer torture. "and you will write your essay on the uses of billywig stings in detection potions. Twelve inches, as assigned in class. Once I have read and graded it, you will be allowed to return to your dormitory for the night." Snape raised an eyebrow at him. "Any questions?"

Harry started to shake his head, but then licked his lips and swallowed instead. "Your trousers, Sir -- your robes, where I…" he pointed at the sticky shine he left behind, and then, because it couldn't be helped, at the conspicuous bulge ridging up between the buttons of Snape's trouser placket. He couldn't believe he was saying it, only he heard the tentative waver in his own voice. "Oughtn't I to…"

Snape sat back, knees still spread, hiding a smirk behind his steepled fingers as he watched Harry blush. He was going to laugh, Harry just knew it. He was going to be evil and horrible, and why hadn't he just kept his stupid mouth shut? Only Snape just leaned his chair a subtle tilt farther, so that the light gleamed over his cloth-trapped erection.

"Why Mr. Potter, "he said at last, and the smile his lips would never show curled out on his smug velvet voice, "I didn't know you cared."

Fin


End file.
